THE Jets know where they are, and who they are, and what they can be. They have been around long enough not to dare overlook the dangerous Broncos today, but a little voice inside them will not go away, and they do not want it to. It is the same voice they started hearing two years ago at this time.

Super Bowl, it whispers. Super Bowl.

So much can happen between now and January 28. So much has already happened to the Jets. The personnel losses were supposed to ruin them, leave them bloodied and bowed on rebuilding knees, mourning Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick and Keyshawn Johnson. Well guess what? The 6-2 Jets are still standing.

“At the beginning of the year, if you were to tell me at the halfway point we’d be 6-2, I would have taken it,” Vinny Testaverde said.

The head coach was a rookie. The quarterback hadn’t played in a year. The 6-2 Jets are still standing. And as they peer around the AFC, they now believe they can stand as tall as anyone. “We’re one of the best,” center Kevin Mawae said. The Jets know they are not a Super team. But guess what? You don’t have to be a Super team to reach the Super Bowl anymore, and they know it.

Who scares them?

No one.

So go ahead, Jets, Dream That Super Dream.

Maybe you can yet be one of those once-in-a-lifetime teams where you have to drive a stake into your giant hearts to beat you. Maybe you can be one of those dogged, driven teams that simply finds a way to win. Down 30-7 to the Dolphins with one quarter left? Hell, we’ll throw it to Jumbo Elliott!

“I feel that we have as good a team as anyone,” Curtis Martin said. “I feel that we can beat anyone out there that’s on the field with us. I don’t see anyone who I just say, ‘They’re too good for us.’ I feel we stack up good against anyone, any team you put out there on the field.”

The defending AFC champion Titans are the team to beat. The Jets, Colts and Raiders are the teams that can beat them.

“I think we have as good a shot as anybody,” Testaverde said. “The one intangible thing here is the mental toughness, the mental strength of this team. That never-say-die attitude . . . that’s the one area that you can’t put a grade on. It’s just a feeling we have amongst each other that we’re gonna go out and play hard and we’re gonna try and do the best we can but in the end we’re gonna have a chance to win ’cause everybody’s gonna show up and fight for it.”

Remember all those quitter Jet teams of yesteryear? Parcells chased those ghosts away and Al Groh won’t let them back into Weeb Ewbank Hall.

“We’re not gonna give up,” Martin said. “This is the first time I’ve been around a team that . . . a lot of people talk about never-say-die. This is the first time that I’ve actually witnessed and been a part of it. A lot of teams talk about never giving up, but you can tell on the sidelines a lot of times when you get behind that a team is giving up; you can just feel it. I haven’t felt that regardless of the situations that we’ve been in. I think we’re a team of character. I just hope that we can do what we’ve been doing in the fourth quarter the first three quarters.”

Martin was asked if the Super Bowl is a realistic goal. “I think it’s definitely realistic,” he said. “I think that we have the talent. But it’ll take more than what we’re giving now. I don’t think we can afford to play from behind every game and wait ’til the fourth quarter and come back and be where we want to be. Of course in everyone’s heart you want to have that ring. But right now my mind is so far away from that. ‘Cause I recognize the steps that it’s gonna take to get there.”

Testaverde has to throw fewer interceptions (11). But most of the rust is off now, and he’s comfortable enough with emerging Laveranues Coles to be lobbying for a less conservative approach early in games. Martin hasn’t been overworked and feels frisky enough to improve upon his 3.8-yard per carry rushing average. This is a team that has weathered every storm and now there is another: Someone has to compensate for the loss of John Abraham and get to the quarterback in the fourth quarter.

Testaverde was asked if the Super Bowl is a realistic goal. “Sure it is,” he said. “People may not see us winning in the conventional way I guess that you see teams win, but the bottom line is that we’re winning. Whether it’s throwing the ball to Jumbo, or running a kick back for a touchdown, or having a tipped ball and an interception run for a touchdown, which our defense has done . . . no matter how it gets done as long as it’s getting done.”

He’ll wind up with more gray hairs this way, but Testaverde doesn’t mind being a Cardiac Kid.

“Bill Parcells used to use the phrase ‘battle-hardened,'” Testaverde said. “I think when you go through games like that, that makes you battle-hardened, battle-ready. And certainly coming into this second half of the season, that’s what you need to be, especially when you’re in a position like we are.”

Martin credits the Jets’ commitment to the offseason conditioning program for fostering chemistry. “Our strongest quality is simply that we’re a team,” Martin said. “It was like we got sick of seeing each other this offseason. We had an offseason training camp where we had every member here working out just about every day since March 15. Al’s a guy who’s all about unity; he’s a guy who’s all about one heart and one mind. One goal. And I think that’s transferred over to us.”

Groh showed up better prepared for his first head coaching opportunity than Parcells did back in 1983 with the Giants.

“He’s so committed to do well, he’s so committed to win, that it’s almost as if he’s one of the players,” Martin said. “He has a player’s mentality as a coach. If we mess up, he takes it personal. It’s like he hurts when we hurt. His focus is just as intense as everyone out there on that field. The only thing he’s missing is a helmet and shoulder pads.”

Groh is helped immeasurably by tremendous veteran leadership, starting with Testaverde and Bryan Cox. There are so many others.

“Go down the list,” Chris Hayes says. There are no cliques. “There’s not a lot of talking in little groups,” Ray Mickens says. “If there’s something to be said, it’s said so that the coaches and everybody else hears about it. And it’s good to have that because if you don’t, people would huddle in little groups and nothing would get accomplished, nothing would get fixed. If there’s a problem, we got the veterans that’ll go and fix it.”

They know they must play better now. You can live on the edge for only so long.

“I don’t think anybody feels lucky,” Mickens says. “A lot of people didn’t expect us to be 6-2 at this point. Obviously it isn’t about what people think about us, it’s about what we think about ourselves.” What do you think about yourselves? “We think that we’re a pretty good team.”